Nha Trang

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Nha Phu Lagoon in Khanh Hoa

Nha
Phu Lagoon, located 12 kilometers north of Nha Trang along the central
coast in Khanh Hoa Province, has peaceful waters and breathtaking
scenery and boasts a chain of islands, beautiful beaches and several
resorts.

The
biggest of these islands is Hon Lao, also called “Monkey Island”
because of the thousand or so monkeys who inhabit the island.

Previously
some of Hon Lao’s monkeys would end up as test subjects in vaccine
laboratories, but since the island was given over to resort developers,
the animals spend much of their time amusing the tourists.

There
are three types of monkeys on Hon Lao, red-buttock with short tails,
red-faced with yellow coats and long-tailed with gray coats.

They
usually comb the forest for food during the day, although many feel
trusting enough to enter Hon Lao Tourism Park to try to get fed by the
visitors.

For
other entertainment on the island, the resort has an animal circus with
elephants, bears, monkeys and dogs, as well as a bird park and a garden
full of statues and sculptures.

There’s also a place called Thien Long (heaven dragon) that contains a giant landscaped thien tue
(a type of plant) arranged to resemble a dragon, statues of Phuc, Loc
and Tho (the gods of happiness, wealthy and longevity), and a dozen
statues symbolizing the zodiac.

And if
you want to do more than just walk around and observe the sites, you
can go horseback riding, fishing, swimming or boat racing.

Nearby is the island of Hon Thi, which contains beautiful forests housing an abundance of native plants and animals.

A walk through the trees is strongly recommended if you like nature.

There is an ostrich farm on Hon Thi.

The ostriches are friendly and tourists are welcome to pet and feed them.

Spotted deer are also bred on this farm and tourists can feed the deer dry peanuts or corn.

Hon Thi has many beautiful beaches with fresh and shallow water.

There
are also many orchards on the island with such varieties as mango,
guava, custard-apple, orange, dragon fruit and coconut trees.

Visitors to the island can pass these orchards as they trek to an area with large rock formations.

Under these rocks is a deep cave.

It is not recommended to explore too far into the cave, but with a flash light tourists can safely walk a short way in.

Also
worth a look while exploring the Nha Phu Lagoon is Suoi Hoa Lan(orchid
brook) in the Ninh Phu Commune of the Ninh Hoa District.

The brook was formed by many small streams flowing down from the rocky slopes of Hon Heo Mountain.

The
brook gives its name to the new Hoa Lan Stream Tourist Site, which
contains a beautiful collection of orchids gathered from across the
northern and central regions as well as plants native to the central
coast.

In fact there are more than 3,000 specimens of 39 orchid species within the park's grotto-like “Cave of Orchid Flowers”.